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Bro. Bill Nichols
Well, good morning everyone. We are already infringing on Brother David's time because I'll have to I'll have to run late and Actually, I probably won't. This is this might be the shortest Book in the Bible Chapter in the Bible.
It's only ten verses long and I really had trouble. Getting my word quotas, we're in the book of Jonah and we're in chapter two. Before we begin let's pray most gracious Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day and thank you for all your many blessings.
Thank you for giving us your son. Thank you for giving us your word the scripture so that we can study it and so that we can worship you and so that we can understand the things that you have in store for us and Help us to understand that when you give us a commission that we are to do it and we're to do it joyfully.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Well the book of Jonah Shows us an important principle concerning the sovereignty of God. That is what happens when God wants a person to do something, but the person doesn't want to do it.
Jonah shows us that God has the ability to bring us to the place where we will do what he wants us to do and Sometimes he even changes us so that we want to do what he wants us to do. Sometimes he does that but not always and not here as we shall see later.
Jonah does go to Nineveh. He goes. But only reluctantly. Not at all rejoicing in his assigned mission. Now Jonah, unlike us did not have in his scripture Philippians 4. But at least he should have been aware of the concept in Philippians 4 for it says rejoice in the Lord always and again, I say rejoice we spent Almost 30 minutes talking about that verse a couple of weeks ago.
We were in Philippians and I'd just like to ask you a question. Do you think Jonah rejoiced when he received his commission to go to Nineveh? I don't think he did and then Philippians goes on to say let your moderation be known unto all men.
The Lord is at hand be careful for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be known to God and The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.
Well, do you think Jonah had peace? When do you think Jonah finally got peace? I don't know that Jonah even has peace now. We don't know too much about him and we don't know too much about him for a lot of reasons and one of the reasons is because the The Jewish people didn't quite accept him as a prophet and in fact when they asked When they were talking about Jesus they said there has never been a prophet come out of Galilee and we talked about that last week.
The town that he came from goth helper was two miles from Nazareth so if. Isn't that amazing? Joyfully. Yes, but now see the people that the people that were speaking about Jesus they had their heels dug into.
They didn't want the scripture to go to the Gentiles either. That's what it was all about. This the Lord is Sending out his message to the Jewish people and to us that the Scripture is to go out to the entire world.
In fact, he says and I would get that later in Abraham all Nations will be blessed not just the Jewish nation. Okay, let's jump in. That's a bad word to say. I Was going to say let's jump in to the fishes Bailey.
Then Jonah praying unto the Lord his God out of the fishes Bailey. That's the first mention we have of Jonah praying. Well, I answered my question that I had next the when did Jonah decide to pray. Well, let's let's look at some of the times less.
Let's look at some of the times. He didn't choose to pray. He could have prayed When the Word of the Lord came unto him to go to Nineveh. He could have prayed to the Lord and asked the Lord to make him comfortable with the trip.
He didn't he could have prayed before he got up and ran to Down to Joppa to jump on a ship to Tarsus. But he didn't. He could have prayed before he paid the fare to go to Tarsus To escape the presence of the Lord.
But he didn't. He could have prayed while the storm was raging. But he didn't he was asleep. He could have prayed when the sailors asked him to call on his Lord, but he didn't. He could have prayed when the sailors asked what shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm.
But he didn't. Now the sailors did. They prayed to their gods. Their gods which had no power to do anything they prayed to them. They even prayed to Jonah's God but Jonah didn't. And now finally Some undetermined time after They took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from her raging sometime after that is when he prayed and also after the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
But before his three days and three nights were finished. Finally Jonah prayed so I'm gonna go back and reread that verse again because we've got plenty of time then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly and Said I cried by reason of mine affliction Unto the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of hell.
I cried and thou hearest my voice. Now here's what John MacArthur says about that passage. He says this passage does not necessarily Indicate that Jonah actually died and I added Does not necessarily indicate means maybe he died and maybe he did.
MacArthur didn't take a definitive position on that. He said it does not necessarily indicate that Jonah died. It may have but not necessarily Matthew Henry did. We'll get to that in a minute. There there's there's a lot of commentary.
Terry's that some say he was kept alive and he was alive in the fish's belly and I think every person that Exists and believes in the scripture believes that that he was alive when he prayed out of The fish's belly.
The controversy is not that the controversy is did he die? Before before the Fish scooped him up. Matthew Henry thinks he did. And I will just tell you up front. I think he did too and I'll tell you why in a second.
But I'm gonna finish with what MacArthur said. No, no at that that that is. You know what? I think that Satan is very successful in his way of attacking the scripture. He makes Jonah be a book about a fish.
Instead of a book about The responsibility to carry forth your Commission. The whole book of Jonah is about Jonah rebelling against the Commission that the Lord gave him and even at the end He's sitting down under the great Tree telling the Lord see I told you you'd forgive him.
He didn't want that. He didn't want to do what the Lord asked him to do and the whole book is about Us doing what our Commission is for us to do. Not a story about a great fish, but we get in Trapped in the story and that's where we stay.
Okay, hello, this is MacArthur again. Hell frequently has a hyperbolic meaning. This is it doesn't necessarily mean that Jonah died. Hell frequently has a hyperbolic meaning in context where it denotes a catastrophic Condition near death.
And then he cited a Psalms a psalm written by David Psalm 33 you can go there if you want to but I'll just read it. Oh Lord thou has brought up my soul from the grave thou has kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit.
That's Psalms 33 but MacArthur focuses on the first part of the verse where it says Thou has brought up my soul from the grave. Not the second part. Thou has kept me alive. That I should not go down to the pit now David has been kept alive.
In this event that David is talking about he was not Dead and raised from the dead, but the Lord kept him alive. Jonah I believe has actually died then he has Miraculously been raised from the dead and placed in the belly of the great fish.
Where he stayed three days and three nights. That's what I believe and we'll get to that again in a minute. Matthew Henry as we shall see later seemed to believe that the great fish did not immediately swallow Jonah when he was cast into the sea.
It's not like when you fly fishing and you throw that fly out and the Trout doesn't wait for it to land in the water. They just leaps up and grabs it. I've had that happen to me and Then sometimes it just hits the water and the fish grabs it and then sometimes you have to let it drift along and do all Sorts of things and later the fish grabs it.
He said it wasn't that Jonah was just thrown into the water and the fish scooped him up. And we'll see that clearly as we go through the rest of this passage. But that in fact he remained in the sea and Matthew Henry believes that he was dead for some amount of time before he was scooped up and That it was during his three days in the belly of the fish that he prayed after he was scooped up and miraculously raised from the dead and placed Placed in the fish's belly and miraculously raised from the dead that the That he prayed.
One thing though that happened immediately when he was thrown overboard and That's the sea became calm. Verse 3. For thou has cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas and the floods compassed me about and All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
So now he is in he is in the sea and He is under the water and Then I said I am cast out of eyesight yet. I will look again toward my holy temple Temple, this is I believe Jonah's recognition that he is dead.
He is out of the sight of the Lord. I may be stretching a little bit. The waters compassed me about Even to the soul the depth closed round about and the weeds were wrapped around my head in verse 5. In verse 5, I believe it indicates that Jonah is dead.
The Seaweeds are wrapped around his head. He is under the water even his soul is Swamped in the water the depth closed round about and the weeds were wrapped about my head. And I waited until now to cite Acts 17 11.
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures Daily, whether those things were so some things You're gonna have to search the scripture to make your determination about and this will be one of them.
But in verse 6 he is scooped up by the great fish and restored to life. It's a sign given to God Given by God to Jonah as well as to the Pharisees in Matthew 12, which we looked at last week. If you remember last week Matthew 12 39 Jesus is answering the Pharisees when they say Give us a sign that you are the Messiah.
And he answered and said unto them an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after sign and There shall no sign be given it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas as Jonah. For as Jonas was in the belly was three days and three nights in the whales belly so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and condemn it.
Because they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold a greater than Jonah is here Implying and you didn't repent. What this is is a sign given by God as to the importance of the lesson taught to Jonah and taught to the Pharisees.
And this is what we were getting to the lesson is the Jewish nation was chosen by God To be the instrument by which his message of salvation by grace was delivered to the world. They were supposed to be his instrument the instrument that spread this message throughout the world.
But instead of spreading it through the world, they hoarded it. They kept it. They didn't want to share it. They did not especially want to share it with the Gentiles who they considered Like the worst class of an animal dogs.
The the worst of all the animals in their eyes. In fact in Genesis 22 18 It says this and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed not just Israel. Because thou hast obeyed my voice. He's talking about Abraham.
He's not talking about Abraham's descendants who didn't obey his voice, which said all the nations shall be blessed. And then in Galatians 3 13, it says this God Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. That's what they were missing. That's what the Pharisees were missing.
That's not what Jonah was missing. Jonah Didn't even go down that path to start with he says no way. Am I going to be the agent of salvation for this bunch of dogs? That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through the faith.
Brethren, I speak after the matter of men. Though it be but a man's covenant yet if it be confirmed no man disanalyzed or added thereat to. Now to the Abraham and his seeds were the promises made. He saith not to seeds as a many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ and this I say That the covenant that was confirmed before God in Christ.
The law was four hundred and thirty years after can not Disannul that it should make it the promise of no effect. So the promise that was made to Abraham and Extended to all nations could not be disannulled by whether or not one was able to follow the law.
Now in particular Jonah was sent to Nineveh and Though he rebelled and though he never called upon the men of Nineveh to repent. They did and The question is why did they repent? Certainly not because Jonah asked them to.
Jonah didn't have an altar call In Nineveh and said repent or you'll be destroyed. He didn't call on them to repent. So why did they repent? Okay, I'll tell you because God extended his grace to them God summoned them God told them to repent.
He called them and after he called them they repented just like we all do after He notifies us that he has called us Verse 6 and I went down to the bottoms of the mountain the earth with her bars Was about me forever yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption.
Now that is awkwardly written in the King James Version because Does anyone know what corruption is? Everything messed up and we have kind of like the idea of Confusion bad stuff, but there is a Definitive thing that it's talking about here.
The word the word is shashay Shashay Shashay and the King James Version of the Bible has this word in it 18 19 20 20 23 times it's corrupted its Translated corruption four times here in three other places.
It's Translated pit 14 times Destruction twice ditch twice and the grave once. Now in The King James Version it reads this way. I went down to the bottom of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever yet.
Has thou brought up my life from corruption. Oh Lord my God the same verse in the English Standard Translation, which I think it's clear in this particular case. I Want to read it at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit. Oh Lord my God. If you read if you read that from the pit or from the grave or from the ditch rather than from corruption It would be clear.
What is meant here? I think and again, I am like brother David I've much prefer the King James Version all the time and Even this time I'm happy with the Translation, but we need we do need to understand what this word corruption really means it means out of the pit.
Most of the time King James translate this very word out of the pit. Any comments, well, okay that that's that's good, but now remember Jonah was Old Testament. Jonah was like the rich man that was discussed in the parable where where he is in hell and The poor man that said it is getting baked.
Lazarus Was Not in hell, but nearby nearby enough that The rich man knew that he was there but far enough away that they couldn't get from one to the other and and the rich man called on Lazarus to come and give him some water and he said I couldn't even if I wanted to there's a great gulf between us and I I couldn't go and Then he said well at least at least send him back at least send Lazarus back to life and so he can tell my brothers not to come here to take care of themselves and not come here.
And Jesus said if someone were to come from the dead They still wouldn't believe. So there is a place there was a place at the time of Jonah that was not heaven or not hell. It would be the pit on the one side with in the book that they call it the bosom of Abraham and on the other side In Hades.
I'm not sure about I'm not sure about whether the To be absent from the body is to be present with Christ would be applicable in the Old Testament. What do you think brother David? So that's a Who's this?
He was talking about he was talking to Abraham and it was Jesus relating to this parable. Yeah, and and that's the reason he wouldn't let the people touch him early on when he arose from the dead because he had not yet Offered his blood to the on the throne.
So That's the real reason that I this is the real verse that made me believe that he was Had died and When I read Matthew Henry, he Laid it in a more clear perspective and we'll finish the lesson today with that perspective and and then you can believe and then you can study and And make a definitive decision maybe or maybe not.
It's been something. All I know is that there's way more to the book of Jonah than a story about a fish. And we lose track of that. We lose track of the fact that it's telling us that we should joyfully Respond to all of God's calls for us to do what he calls us to do and Jonah is a clear example of what not to do.
Everything that Jonah did But seemed to have been wrong. Except the Lord the Lord knew he was going to do it. He knew he was going to brother Dave he knew that he was going to want to go to Tarsus. So he had a ship waiting to take him to Tarsus.
David. David mentioned that last week. It is just incredible that he makes up his mind. I'm going to Tarsus. He goes down to Joppa. And the first thing he runs into is a ship heading to where he wants to go.
Oh. That would be a sign wouldn't it? Along back here in MacArthur's Commentary he listed a list of ten things ten miracles that happened in the book of Jonah and At first I had that in and then I changed my word from miracles to signs.
And I'm not sure the sign is the same as but just to kind of let you know some things that happened that were David. They didn't mention they didn't mention the ship being there for them. But they did mention the fish having been prepared.
They did fit me mentioned the Cast of the lot being cast and the number falling on Jonah. They did mention the fact that the sea calmed immediately when he was thrown over. They did mention the fact that the that the Storm was created by something Supernatural, it's one ordinary storm.
They didn't mention the tree and the vine and the Worm and all of those things as miracles and they weren't really miracles. I don't think now one was a miracle. If in fact Jonah died and was raised from the dead.
That was a miracle. Can you think of any other miracles like that? Well Elijah. Elijah had one of those miracles Elisha had to Apostle Paul had one or two Raising people that were died that had died from death.
Jesus had one. And Jesus had probably several. But there were many instances of people being raised from the dead and every one of them Was a miracle. Now the East Wind was not a miracle. We can have it even hot dry East Winds.
But there certainly could be a sign. Okay. Let's run on Number seven first up, you know, we only got we only got ten verses. We're on seven right now. Yes Jonah it does not say either way, but I'm going to tell you what it does say in just a minute.
I said we're gonna we're gonna do after verse 10. We're going to do Matthew Henry and What it is that Jonah is modeling and when we consider what it is that Jonah is modeling for us. In addition to the the lesson that's being taught in Jonah the thing that he's modeling.
Well, we'll get to that in a second. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy temple now, where is he now? He's in the fish's belly now they that Observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Now. This is an observation that Jonah made while he is in the whale's belly. What's it saying? I tried to run away from God and he recognizes That in his attempt to run away from God he was Unsuccessfully trying to forsake God's mercy.
I want to ask you a question. Did God have mercy on Jonah? He certainly did. I mean he Jonah did the best he could to run away from God's mercy. Even to the fact of telling the sailors to throw him over the board and let him drowned and they did and he did but God showed mercy on him anyhow and even at the end of the story when Jonah is sitting under the tree complaining The Lord had mercy on him.
So he was unsuccessful in getting away from God's mercy. I believe this if God has you slated to receive his mercy you will get it. And if he doesn't have you slated to get his mercy you won't get it.
That's like a mini Vision of the sovereignty of God. God does what he wants to do. Every time he wants to do it. And if you try to run away from him, you'll be unsuccessful and If you try to run toward him unless you're his you'll be unsuccessful in that too.
Then he says verse 9, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. Well, he recognizes at least where the salvation comes from Salvation is from the Lord.
He says I will pay that I have vowed a lot of people take that to mean well, okay. Now he's going to do what the Lord told him to do. He's going to go to Nineveh and he's going to. I Don't know that that's the case.
I just know that whatever it is that he said he would do he's gonna follow His promise and I say so far so good. But you might note he only said he would sacrifice and that he would cease running from God.
Not that he would enthusiastically obey him. Now we know he didn't do that. We know that he did not enthusiastically obey God he may have obeyed him, but if he did he did it reluctantly and The Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land.
Now Here's what Matthew Henry had to say about this passage. We have here Jonah's discharge from his imprisonment. Where was he imprisoned in the fish's belly and from the death. Which there he was threatened with?
His return though not to life for he was a for he lived in the fish's belly. He was alive when he was in fish's belly. Yet to the land of the living. For from that he seemed to be quite cut off. His resurrection though not from death yet from the grave.
For surely never a man was so buried alive as Jonah was in the fish's belly. His enlargement might be considered now that I struggle with that passage, but that's after all that's Matthew Henry and it's an old it's an old commentator and things are not Quite the same but the best I could read that was He was dead.
He was resurrected. He was put into the belly of the fish while he was in the belly of the fish. He was alive and it was from that living Condition in the belly of the fish that he was delivered. But while he was the belly of fish, even though he was alive He was not in the land of the living.
He was in the belly of the fish. That's the way I read that passage and I may be wrong on that. Yes, sir. I'm sorry He didn't really say that clearly here, but he's going to say it later. I'm gonna read what he says here again.
No, here's all he said here's all he said now we have here Jonah's discharge from his imprisonment and His deliverance from that death and his deliverance from that death which there he was threatened with.
So he didn't he doesn't say he died here and Brought to the land of the living but he was my but at this point he is saying he might as well been dead. But if you read the whole thing about four or five times, I think you'll come to this.
He was dead in the water. He was put into the belly of the fish in the belly of the fish. He was alive and while he was alive in the belly of the fish He might as well have been dead. Because he had no access to the land of the living and so what's going to happen is he's going to be released to the Land of the living when the fish spat him out on land.
Now he has three points to mention. One as an instance of God's power over all creatures. God spoke to the fish gave him orders to return him as before he had given him orders to receive him. God speaks to other creatures and it is done.
They are all his ready obedient servants. Remember the donkey in Balaam? But To man he speaks once. Yay twice and he man perceives it not Regards it not but turns a deaf ear to what he says. Note that God has all creatures at his command and makes use and what you see and Makes what use he pleases of them and serves his own purposes by them and that includes man.
So that's one of the veins God has control over the actions of everything man and beast although sometimes man struggles with it seems to think that the beast don't struggle with it as an instance of God's mercy a Poor pentant that in his distress praise to him Jonah had sinned he had done foolish.
Yay, very foolishly his own backsliding did not correct him and it appears by his afterconduct That his foolishness was not quite driven from him. No, not by the rod of this correction and yay upon his praying and humbling himself before God.
Here is a miracle in nature wrought for his deliverance to Intimate what a miracle of grace free grace. God's reception and entertainment of returning sinners are when God had him is a mercy he showed him mercy and Did not contend forever.
All right. Now here is the I think answer to the question as a type and figure of Christ's resurrection. Remember it said you'll have this is the sign you'll be given the sign of Jonah and his three days in the belly of the fish and so he says here and here's where he does say that I believe Matthew Henry says I believe that Christ that Jonah died and Was buried.
Okay, here we go. He that's Christ died and was buried to lay in the grave as Jonah did three days and three nights a prisoner for our debt, but on the third day he came forth as Jonah did By his messengers to preach repentance and the remission of sin even to the Gentiles so to be a figure of Christ he had to die and Be resurrected and lay in the grave Three days and he had to come forth and by his messengers preach Repentance and remission of sin even to the Gentiles.
Jonah never did that but Jonah Jonah's word Spoke to the king and the king's word spoke to the people and the people repented and received Salvation and Jesus his disciples his messengers Preach repent repentance and remission of sin and not to the Jew only but also to the Gentile.
Okay, that's the hard part of Jonah and I am NOT a hundred percent convinced that Jonah died or that he didn't die. But I do know this he was a model for Jesus who did die who did go to visit Sheol and there proclaimed his victory over death and Overseeing and then he rose to give us a way to him any other Comments or questions.
Oh, he was a you absolutely right Jesus with Jesus willingly went but now you even notice even remember Jesus when he at the garden, what did he pray? He didn't really want to do it. But the difference between he and Jonah was He embraced his task Enthusiastically and Jonah ran from it.
Jonah is more a picture of us than he is a picture of Christ because he is he is one of us and he's not Christ after he's. Yeah, and in the New Testament talks all the time about we were already dead.
Even while we're up walking around thinking we're alive. We're dead and It and only after we are quickened can we Receive the gift of the grace of God. He did but we and we do too. So in some ways it is really a Jonah is a picture of a man.
Not a picture of God. He's only a type of God. This is only a symbol. It's an approach that we have a pattern. Oh, yes I Didn't check J. Vernon McGee and and and and that would go to Brother Otis's idea about Jonah being bleached out pale and going into Nineveh as almost like a Ghastly appearance.
I don't think that either. I think he walked in just like he walked in like he got on the boat. I think he came out just like he went in. He was I think he was spit out on the land right near Joppa right where he left.
And he still had to walk to 400 miles to Nineveh, but that's just me. But we can't lose sight of the two big pictures one He is a model not the Christ. And the second is there's a lesson to be learned and the lesson is we shouldn't rebel Against the Commission that the Lord gives us and if we do we will be like Jonah.
We will Wind up doing the thing he wanted us to do. Anyhow, we just won't like it on the way and You can say that surely. Yes, sir. Well, I wish I'd had that I wish I'd had that commentary and any what's unfortunate is I did have access to it.
That's that's right, it's much much more agile than what I have. Well, I'm sure you did. But now you know Understand the the the country language is not necessarily a Bad thing because after all they said to Peter Aren't you a Galilean?
We can tell by the way you talk and that was Peter Paul didn't have that problem any other comments, I Just think that I just think that the whole story is not given proper. Say it's proper balance proper weight.
Because we get sidetracked by being a story about a fish or a whale and we and we we spend How much time talking about where there's a fish or a whale? That would be a good a good Yeah, I like that Most gracious Heavenly Father.
Thank you for this day and thank you for all our many blessings. Help us to understand that all of Scripture is for our benefit. Including the book of John. Praise the Lord keep us keep us close to you go through the rest of this artist today in Jesus name we pray.